Hi every body. I'm new to the forum and new to modding in general.First off, I'd like to extend my congratulations to all who have submitted mods on this site. They all look great! Well,I'll be honest. I haven't seen every last one, but I have yet to see one that hasn't impressed me on some level.

I am about to embark on my first mod ever and I have chosen a mac for my maiden voyage.I am going to need some help. I am not a complete ignoramus to computers. I have upgraded and done minor maintenance to my P4 PC but from what I gather Macs are gonna force me to think different. :P

My goal is to cram an upgraded Sawtooth G4 into a 2U rackmount chassis that I will build from scratch.I will check for the Uni N7 and if it's good then I'll upgrade to a dual CPU card. If not, I'll go with a Sonnet 1ghz single CPU.This computer will be used for a mobile audio recording rig to run Pro Tools M-Powered, so the case will need to be shallower than your average server case I'm shooting for less than 18" preferably 15". I've decided to build a modded mac over buying a mini in order to have the PCI slots I need for my Maudio interface.

Here's a few things that I'm not quite sure about.

HARD DRIVESI'd like to have 2 fast hard drives (7200 RPM). One small system drive and another large drive for audio.Will regular IDE hard drives work?

DVD/CDRWI would like a slot load combo drive. What are my options? Will patchburn make any drive compatible? Could I buy an old powerbook drive and run it internally?

NOISEAlthough I have a powerbook I have no experience with a desktop G4. Are they loud? Would it be possible to make it virtually silent?

RISER CARDSI've seen the perfect 2u riser card.It's a 2PCI+1AGP slot. It says that the AGP slot is for "newer" 2X cards. Will this work? What are the alternatives?

Sorry to bombard everybody with so many questions from the get go but I think I'm right in assuming that any hardware purchase mistakes will be expensive ones.I'd rather get advice from people experienced with this.

I thank you all in advance for any suggestions you may have. I'll be posting semi regularly as I progress.I'll be including images as well.

Xplain's use of MacNews, AppleCentral and AppleExpo are not affiliated with Apple, Inc. MacTech is a registered trademark of Xplain Corporation. AppleCentral, MacNews, Xplain, "The journal of Apple technology", Apple Expo, Explain It, MacDev, MacDev-1, THINK Reference, NetProfessional, MacTech Central, MacTech Domains, MacForge, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks or service marks of Xplain Corp. Sprocket is a registered trademark of eSprocket Corp. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this printing or software remain the property of their respective holders.

All contents are Copyright 1984-2010 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.